Vain were all the attempts to prevail on the Prince of Orange to take

the oath, who, from the suspicion which had long attached to him,

required more than any other this purification; and from whom the great

power which it had been necessary to place in his hands fully justified

the regent in exacting it. It was not, however, advisable to proceed

against him with the laconic brevity adopted towards Brederode and the

like; on the other hand, the voluntary resignation of all his offices,

which he tendered, did not meet the object of the regent, who foresaw

clearly enough how really dangerous he would become, as soon as he

should feel himself independent, and be no longer checked by any

external considerations of character or duty in the prosecution of his

secret designs. But ever since the consultation in Dendermonde the

Prince of Orange had made up his mind to quit the service of the King of

Spain on the first favorable opportunity, and till better days to leave

the country itself. A very disheartening experience had taught him how

uncertain are hopes built on the multitude, and how quickly their zeal

is cooled by the necessity of fulfilling its lofty promises. An army

was already in the field, and a far stronger one was, he knew, on its

road, under the command of the Duke of Alva. The time for remonstrances

was past; it was only at the head of an army that an advantageous treaty

could now be concluded with the regent, and by preventing the entrance

of the Spanish general. But now where was he to raise this army, in

want as he was of money, the sinews of warfare, since the Protestants

had retracted their boastful promises and deserted him in this pressing

emergency?

[How valiant the wish, and how sorry the deed was, is proved by the

following instance amongst others. Some friends of the national

liberty, Roman Catholics as well as Protestants, had solemnly

engaged in Amsterdam to subscribe to a common fund the hundredth

penny of their estates, until a sum of eleven thousand florins

should be collected, which was to be devoted to the common cause

and interests. An alms-box, protected by three locks, was prepared

for the reception of these contributions. After the expiration of

the prescribed period it was opened, and a sum was found amounting

to seven hundred florins, which was given to the hostess of the

Count of Brederode, in part payment of his unliquidated score.

Univ. Hist. of the N., vol. 3.]

Religious jealousy and hatred, moreover, separated the two Protestant

churches, and stood in the way of every salutary combination against

the common enemy of their faith. The rejection of the Confession of

Augsburg by the Calvinists had exasperated all the Protestant princes of

Germany, so that no support was to be looked for from the empire. With

Count Egmont the excellent army of Walloons was also lost to the cause,

for they followed with blind devotion the fortunes of their general, who

had taught them at St. Quentin and Gravelines to be invincible. And

again, the outrages which the Iconoclasts had perpetrated on the

churches and convents had estranged from the league the numerous,

wealthy, and powerful class of the established clergy, who, before this

unlucky episode, were already more than half gained over to it; while,

by her intrigues, the regent daily contrived to deprive the league

itself of some one or other of its most influential members.

All these considerations combined induced the prince to postpone to

a more favorable season a project for which the present juncture was

little suited, and to leave a country where his longer stay could not

effect any advantage for it, but must bring certain destruction on

himself. After intelligence gleaned from so many quarters, after so

many proofs of distrust, so many warnings from Madrid, he could be no

longer doubtful of the sentiments of Philip towards him. If even he

had any doubt, his uncertainty would soon have been dispelled by the

formidable armament which was preparing in Spain, and which was to have

for its leader, not the king, as was falsely given out, but, as he was

better informed, the Duke of Alva, his personal enemy, and the very man

he had most cause to fear. The prince had seen too deeply into Philip’s

heart to believe in the sincerity of his reconciliation after having

once awakened his fears. He judged his own conduct too justly to

reckon, like his friend Egmont, on reaping a gratitude from the king to

which he had not sown. He could therefore expect nothing but hostility

from him, and prudence counselled him to screen himself by a timely

flight from its actual outbreak. He had hitherto obstinately refused

to take the new oath, and all the written exhortations of the regent

had been fruitless. At last she sent to him at Antwerp her private

secretary, Berti, who was to put the matter emphatically to his

conscience, and forcibly remind him of all the evil consequences which

so sudden a retirement from the royal service would draw upon the

country, as well as the irreparable injury it would do to his own fair

fame. Already, she informed him by her ambassador, his declining the

required oath had cast a shade upon his honor, and imparted to the

general voice, which accused him of an understanding with the rebels, an

appearance of truth which this unconditional resignation would convert

to absolute certainty. It was for the sovereign to discharge his

servants, but it did not become the servant to abandon his sovereign.

The envoy of the regent found the prince in his palace at Antwerp,

already, as it appeared, withdrawn from the public service, and entirely

devoted to his private concerns. The prince told him, in the presence

of Hogstraten, that he had refused to take the required oath because he

could not find that such a proposition had ever before been made to a

governor of a province; because he had already bound himself, once for

all, to the king, and therefore, by taking this new oath, he would

tacitly acknowledge that he had broken the first. He had also refused

because the old oath enjoined him to protect the rights and privileges

of the country, but he could not tell whether this new one might not

impose upon him duties which would contravene the first; because, too,

the clause which bound him to serve, if required, against all without

distinction, did not except even the emperor, his feudal lord, against

whom, however, he, as his vassal, could not conscientiously make war.

He had refused to take this oath because it might impose upon him the

necessity of surrendering his friends and relations, his children, nay,

even his wife, who was a Lutheran, to butchery. According to it,

moreover, he must lend himself to every thing which it should occur to

the king’s fancy or passion to demand. But the king might thus exact

from him things which he shuddered even to think of, and even the

severities which were now, and had been all along, exercised upon the

Protestants, were the most revolting to his heart. This oath, in short,

was repugnant to his feelings as a man, and he could not take it. In

conclusion, the name of the Duke of Alva dropped from his lips in a tone

of bitterness, and he became immediately silent.

All these objections were answered, point by point, by Berti. Certainly

such an oath had never been required from a governor before him, because

the provinces had never been similarly circumstanced. It was not

exacted because the governors had broken the first, but in order to

remind them vividly of their former vows, and to freshen their activity

in the present emergency. This oath would not impose upon him anything

which offended against the rights and privileges of the country, for the

king had sworn to observe these as well as the Prince of Orange. The

oath did not, it was true, contain any reference to a war with the

emperor, or any other sovereign to whom the prince might be related; and

if he really had scruples on this point, a distinct clause could easily

be inserted, expressly providing against such a contingency. Care would

be taken to spare him any duties which were repugnant to his feelings as

a man, and no power on earth would compel him to act against his wife or

against his children. Berti was then passing to the last point, which

related to the Duke of Alva, but the prince, who did not wish to have

this part of his discourse canvassed, interrupted him. “The king was

coming to the Netherlands,” he said, “and he knew the king. The king

would not endure that one of his servants should have wedded a Lutheran,

and he had therefore resolved to go with his whole family into voluntary

banishment before he was obliged to submit to the same by compulsion.

But,” he concluded, “wherever he might be, he would always conduct

himself as a subject of the king.” Thus far-fetched were the motives

which the prince adduced to avoid touching upon the single one which

really decided him.

Berti had still a hope of obtaining, through Egmont’s eloquence, what by

his own he despaired of effecting. He therefore proposed a meeting with

the latter (1567), which the prince assented to the more willingly as he

himself felt a desire to embrace his friend once more before his

departure, and if possible to snatch the deluded man from certain

destruction. This remarkable meeting, at which the private secretary,

Berti, and the young Count Mansfeld, were also present, was the last

that the two friends ever held, and took place in Villebroeck, a village

on the Rupel, between Brussels and Antwerp. The Calvinists, whose last

hope rested on the issue of this conference, found means to acquaint

themselves of its import by a spy, who concealed himself in the chimney

of the apartment where it was held. All three attempted to shake the

determination of the prince, but their united eloquence was unable to

move him from his purpose. “It will cost you your estates, Orange, if

you persist in this intention,” said the Prince of Gaure, as he took him

aside to a window. “And you your life, Egmont, if you change not

yours,” replied the former. “To me it will at least be a consolation in

my misfortunes that I desired, in deed as well as in word, to help my

country and my friends in the hour of need; but you, my friend, you are

dragging friends and country with you to destruction.” And saying these

words, he once again exhorted him, still more urgently than ever, to

return to the cause of his country, which his arm alone was yet able to

preserve; if not, at least for his own sake to avoid the tempest which

was gathering against him from Spain.

But all the arguments, however lucid, with which a far-discerning

prudence supplied him, and however urgently enforced, with all the ardor

and animation which the tender anxiety of friendship could alone

inspire, did not avail to destroy the fatal confidence which still

fettered Egmont’s better reason. The warning of Orange seemed to come

from a sad and dispirited heart; but for Egmont the world still smiled.

To abandon the pomp and affluence in which he had grown up to youth and

manhood; to part with all the thousand conveniences of life which alone

made it valuable to him, and all this to escape an evil which his

buoyant spirit regarded as remote, if not imaginary; no, that was not a

sacrifice which could be asked from Egmont. But had he even been less

given to indulgence than he was, with what heart could he have consigned

a princess, accustomed by uninterrupted prosperity to ease and comfort,

a wife who loved him as dearly as she was beloved, the children on whom

his soul hung in hope and fondness, to privations at the prospect of

which his own courage sank, and which a sublime philosophy alone can

enable sensuality to undergo. “You will never persuade me, Orange,”

said Egmont, “to see things in the gloomy light in which they appear to

thy mournful prudence. When I have succeeded in abolishing the public

preachings, and chastising the Iconoclasts, in crushing the rebels, and

restoring peace and order in the provinces, what can the king lay to my

charge? The king is good and just; I have claims upon his gratitude,

and I must not forget what I owe to myself.” “Well, then,” cried

Orange, indignantly and with bitter anguish, “trust, if you will, to

this royal gratitude; but a mournful presentiment tells me--and may

Heaven grant that I am deceived!--that you, Egmont, will be the bridge

by which the Spaniards will pass into our country to destroy it.” After

these words, he drew him to his bosom, ardently clasping him in his

arms. Long, as though the sight was to serve for the remainder of his

life, did he keep his eyes fixed upon him; the tears fell; they saw each

other no more.

The very next day the Prince of Orange wrote his letter of resignation

to the regent, in which he assured her of his perpetual esteem, and once

again entreated her to put the best interpretation on his present step.

He then set off with his three brothers and his whole family for his own

town of Breda, where he remained only as long as was requisite to

arrange some private affairs. His eldest son, Prince Philip William,

was left behind at the University of Louvain, where he thought him

sufficiently secure under the protection of the privileges of Brabant

and the immunities of the academy; an imprudence which, if it was really

not designed, can hardly be reconciled with the just estimate which, in

so many other cases, he had taken of the character of his adversary. In

Breda the heads of the Calvinists once more consulted him whether there

was still hope for them, or whether all was irretrievably lost. “He had

before advised them,” replied the prince, “and must now do so again, to

accede to the Confession of Augsburg; then they might rely upon aid from

Germany. If they would still not consent to this, they must raise six

hundred thousand florins, or more, if they could.” “The first,” they

answered, “was at variance with their conviction and their conscience;

but means might perhaps be found to raise the money if he would only let

them know for what purpose he would use it.” “No!” cried he, with the

utmost displeasure, “if I must tell you that, it is all over with the

use of it.” With these words he immediately broke off the conference

and dismissed the deputies.

The Prince of Orange was reproached with having squandered his fortune,

and with favoring the innovations on account of his debts; but he

asserted that he still enjoyed sixty thousand florins yearly rental.

Before his departure he borrowed twenty thousand florins from the states

of Holland on the mortgage of some manors. Men could hardly persuade

themselves that he would have succumbed to necessity so entirely, and

without an effort at resistance given up all his hopes and schemes. But

what he secretly meditated no one knew, no one had read in his heart.

Being asked how he intended to conduct himself towards the King of

Spain, “Quietly,” was his answer, “unless he touches my honor or my

estates.” He left the Netherlands soon afterwards, and betook himself

in retirement to the town of Dillenburg, in Nassau, at which place he

was born. He was accompanied to Germany by many hundreds, either as his

servants or as volunteers, and was soon followed by Counts Hogstraten,

Kuilemberg, and Bergen, who preferred to share a voluntary exile with

him rather than recklessly involve themselves in an uncertain destiny.

In his departure the nation saw the flight of its guardian angel; many

had adored, all had honored him. With him the last stay of the

Protestants gave way; they, however, had greater hopes from this man

in exile than from all the others together who remained behind. Even

the Roman Catholics could not witness his departure without regret.

Them also had he shielded from tyranny; he had not unfrequently

protected them against the oppression of their own church, and he had

rescued many of them from the sanguinary jealousy of their religious

opponents. A few fanatics among the Calvinists, who were offended with

his proposal of an alliance with their brethren, who avowed the

Confession of Augsburg, solemnized with secret thanksgivings the day on

which the enemy left them. (1567).

DECAY AND DISPERSION OF THE GEUSEN LEAGUE.

Immediately after taking leave of his friend, the Prince of Gaure

hastened back to Brussels, to receive from the regent the reward of his

firmness, and there, in the excitement of the court and in the sunshine

of his good fortune, to dispel the light cloud which the earnest

warnings of the Prince of Orange had cast over his natural gayety.

The flight of the latter now left him in possession of the stage.

He had now no longer any rival in the republic to dim his glory. With

redoubled zeal he wooed the transient favor of the court, above which he

ought to have felt himself far exalted. All Brussels must participate

in his joy. He gave splendid banquets and public entertainments, at

which, the better to eradicate all suspicion from his mind, the regent

herself frequently attended. Not content with having taken the required

oath, he outstripped the most devout in devotion; outran the most

zealous in zeal to extirpate the Protestant faith, and to reduce by

force of arms the refractory towns of Flanders. He declared to his old

friend, Count Hogstraten, as also to the rest of the Gueux, that he

would withdraw from them his friendship forever if they hesitated any

longer to return into the bosom of the church, and reconcile themselves

with their king. All the confidential letters which had been exchanged

between him and them were returned, and by this last step the breach

between them was made public and irreparable. Egmont’s secession, and

the flight of the Prince of Orange, destroyed the last hope of the

Protestants and dissolved the whole league of the Gueux. Its members

vied with each other in readiness--nay, they could not soon enough

abjure the covenant and take the new oath proposed to them by the

government. In vain did the Protestant merchants exclaim at this breach

of faith on the part of the nobles; their weak voice was no longer

listened to, and all the sums were lost with which they had supplied the

league.

The most important places were quickly reduced and garrisoned; the

rebels had fled, or perished by the hand of the executioner; in the

provinces no protector was left. All yielded to the fortune of the

regent, and her victorious army was advancing against Antwerp. After a

long and obstinate contest this town had been cleared of the worst

rebels; Hermann and his adherents took to flight; the internal storms

had spent their rage. The minds of the people became gradually

composed, and no longer excited at will by every furious fanatic, began

to listen to better counsels. The wealthier citizens earnestly longed

for peace to revive commerce and trade, which had suffered severely from

the long reign of anarchy. The dread of Alva’s approach worked wonders;

in order to prevent the miseries which a Spanish army would inflict upon

the country, the people hastened to throw themselves on the gentler

mercies of the regent. Of their own accord they despatched

plenipotentiaries to Brussels to negotiate for a treaty and to hear her

terms. Agreeably as the regent was surprised by this voluntary step,

she did not allow herself to be hurried away by her joy. She declared

that she neither could nor would listen to any overtures or

representations until the town had received a garrison. Even this was

no longer opposed, and Count Mansfeld marched in the day after with

sixteen squadrons in battle array. A solemn treaty was now made between

the town and duchess, by which the former bound itself to prohibit the

Calvinistic form of worship, to banish all preachers of that persuasion,

to restore the Roman Catholic religion to its former dignity, to

decorate the despoiled churches with their former ornaments, to

administer the old edicts as before, to take the new oath which the

other towns had sworn to, and, lastly, to deliver into the hands of

justice all who been guilty of treason, in bearing arms, or taking part

in the desecration of the churches. On the other hand, the regent

pledged herself to forget all that had passed, and even to intercede for

the offenders with the king. All those who, being dubious of obtaining

pardon, preferred banishment, were to be allowed a month to convert

their property into money, and place themselves in safety. From this

grace none were to be excluded but such as had been guilty of a capital

offence, and who were excepted by the previous article. Immediately

upon the conclusion of this treaty all Calvinist and Lutheran preachers

in Antwerp, and the adjoining territory, were warned by the herald to

quit the country within twenty-four hours. All the streets and gates

were now thronged with fugitives, who for the honor of their God

abandoned what was dearest to them, and sought a more peaceful home for

their persecuted faith. Here husbands were taking an eternal farewell

of their wives, fathers of their children; there whole families were

preparing to depart. All Antwerp resembled a house of mourning;

wherever the eye turned some affecting spectacle of painful separation

presented itself. A seal was set on the doors of the Protestant

churches; the whole worship seemed to be extinct. The 10th of April

(1567) was the day appointed for the departure of the preachers. In the

town hall, where they appeared for the last time to take leave of the

magistrate, they could not command their grief; but broke forth into

bitter reproaches. They had been sacrificed, they exclaimed, they had

been shamefully betrayed; but a time would come when Antwerp would pay

dearly enough for this baseness. Still more bitter were the complaints

of the Lutheran clergy, whom the magistrate himself had invited into the

country to preach against the Calvinists. Under the delusive

representation that the king was not unfavorable to their religion they

had been seduced into a combination against the Calvinists, but as soon

as the latter had been by their co-operation brought under subjection,

and their own services were no longer required, they were left to bewail

their folly, which had involved themselves and their enemies in common

ruin.

A few days afterwards the regent entered Antwerp in triumph, accompanied

by a thousand Walloon horse, the Knights of the Golden Fleece, all the

governors and counsellors, a number of municipal officers, and her whole

court. Her first visit was to the cathedral, which still bore

lamentable traces of the violence of the Iconoclasts, and drew from her

many and bitter tears. Immediately afterwards four of the rebels, who

had been overtaken in their flight, were brought in and executed in the

public market-place. All the children who had been baptized after the

Protestant rites were rebaptized by Roman Catholic priests; all the

schools of heretics were closed, and their churches levelled to the

ground. Nearly all the towns in the Netherlands followed the example of

Antwerp and banished the Protestant preachers. By the end of April the

Roman Catholic churches were repaired and embellished more splendidly

than ever, while all the Protestant places of worship were pulled down,

and every vestige of the proscribed belief obliterated in the seventeen

provinces. The populace, whose sympathies are generally with the

successful party, was now as active in accelerating the ruin of the

unfortunate as a short time before it had been furiously zealous in its

cause; in Ghent a large and beautiful church which the Calvinists had

erected was attacked, and in less than an hour had wholly disappeared.

From the beams of the roofless churches gibbets were erected for those

who had profaned the sanctuaries of the Roman Catholics. The places of

execution were filled with corpses, the prisons with condemned victims,

the high roads with fugitives. Innumerable were the victims of this

year of murder; in the smallest towns fifty at least, in several of the

larger as many as three hundred, were put to death, while no account was

kept of the numbers in the open country who fell into the hands of the

provost-marshal and were immediately strung up as miscreants, without

trial and without mercy.

The regent was still in Antwerp when ambassadors presented themselves

from the Electors of Brandenburg, Saxony, Hesse, Wurtemberg, and Baden

to intercede for their fugitive brethren in the faith. The expelled

preachers of the Augsburg Confession had claimed the rights assured to

them by the religious peace of the Germans, in which Brabant, as part of

the empire, participated, and had thrown themselves on the protection of

those princes. The arrival of the foreign ministers alarmed the regent,

and she vainly endeavored to prevent their entrance into Antwerp; under

the guise, however, of showing them marks of honor, she continued to

keep them closely watched lest they should encourage the malcontents in

any attempts against the peace of the town. From the high tone which

they most unreasonably adopted towards the regent it might almost be

inferred that they were little in earnest in their demand. “It was but

reasonable,” they said, “that the Confession of Augsburg, as the only

one which met the spirit of the gospel, should be the ruling faith in

the Netherlands; but to persecute it by such cruel edicts as were in

force was positively unnatural and could not be allowed. They therefore

required of the regent, in the name of religion, not to treat the people

entrusted to her rule with such severity.” She replied through the Count

of Staremberg, her minister for German affairs, that such an exordium

deserved no answer at all. From the sympathy which the German princes

had shown for the Belgian fugitives it was clear that they gave less

credit to the letters of the king, in explanation of his measures, than

to the reports of a few worthless wretches who, in the desecrated

churches, had left behind them a worthier memorial of their acts and

characters. It would far more become them to leave to the King of Spain

the care of his own subjects, and abandon the attempt to foster a spirit

of rebellion in foreign countries, from which they would reap neither

honor nor profit. The ambassadors left Antwerp in a few days without

having effected anything. The Saxon minister, indeed, in a private

interview with the regent even assured her that his master had most

reluctantly taken this step.

The German ambassadors had not quitted Antwerp when intelligence from

Holland completed the triumph of the regent. From fear of Count Megen

Count Brederode had deserted his town of Viane, and with the aid of the

Protestants inhabitants had succeeded in throwing himself into

Amsterdam, where his arrival caused great alarm to the city magistrate,

who had previously found difficulty in preventing a revolt, while it

revived the courage of the Protestants. Here Brederode’s adherents

increased daily, and many noblemen flocked to him from Utrecht,

Friesland, and Groningen, whence the victorious arms of Megen and

Aremberg had driven them. Under various disguises they found means to

steal into the city, where they gathered round Brederode, and served him

as a strong body-guard. The regent, apprehensive of a new outbreak,

sent one of her private secretaries, Jacob de la Torre, to the council

of Amsterdam, and ordered them to get rid of Count Brederode on any

terms and at any risk. Neither the magistrate nor de la Torre himself,

who visited Brederode in person to acquaint him with the will of the

duchess, could prevail upon him to depart. The secretary was even

surprised in his own chamber by a party of Brederode’s followers, and

deprived of all his papers, and would, perhaps, have lost his life also

if he had not contrived to make his escape. Brederode remained in

Amsterdam a full month after this occurrence, a powerless idol of the

Protestants, and an oppressive burden to the Roman Catholics; while his

fine army, which he had left in Viane, reinforced by many fugitives from

the southern provinces, gave Count Megen enough to do without attempting

to harass the Protestants in their flight. At last Brederode resolved

to follow the example of Orange, and, yielding to necessity, abandon a

desperate cause. He informed the town council that he was willing to

leave Amsterdam if they would enable him to do so by furnishing him with

the pecuniary means. Glad to get quit of him, they hastened to borrow

the money on the security of the town council. Brederode quitted

Amsterdam the same night, and was conveyed in a gunboat as far as Vlie,

from whence he fortunately escaped to Embden. Fate treated him more

mildly than the majority of those he had implicated in his foolhardy

enterprise; he died the year after, 1568, at one of his castles in

Germany, from the effects of drinking, by which he sought ultimately to

drown his grief and disappointments. His widow, Countess of Moers in

her own right, was remarried to the Prince Palatine, Frederick III. The

Protestant cause lost but little by his demise; the work which he had

commenced, as it had not been kept alive by him, so it did not die with

him.

The little army, which in his disgraceful flight he had deserted, was

bold and valiant, and had a few resolute leaders. It disbanded, indeed,

as soon as he, to whom it looked for pay, had fled; but hunger and

courage kept its parts together some time longer. One body, under

command of Dietrich of Battenburgh, marched to Amsterdam in the hope of

carrying that town; but Count Megen hastened with thirteen companies of

excellent troops to its relief, and compelled the rebels to give up the

attempt. Contenting themselves with plundering the neighboring

cloisters, among which the abbey of Egmont in particular was hardly

dealt with, they turned off towards Waaterland, where they hoped the

numerous swamps would protect them from pursuit. But thither Count

Megen followed them, and compelled them in all haste to seek safety in

the Zuyderzee. The brothers Van Battenburg, and two Friesan nobles,

Beima and Galama, with a hundred and twenty men and the booty they had

taken from the monasteries, embarked near the town of Hoorne, intending

to cross to Friesland, but through the treachery of the steersman, who

ran the vessel on a sand-bank near Harlingen, they fell into the hands

of one of Aremberg’s captains, who took them all prisoners. The Count

of Aremberg immediately pronounced sentence upon all the captives of

plebeian rank, but sent his noble prisoners to the regent, who caused

seven of them to be beheaded. Seven others of the most noble, including

the brothers Van Battenburg and some Frieslanders, all in the bloom of

youth, were reserved for the Duke of Alva, to enable him to signalize

the commencement of his administration by a deed which was in every way

worthy of him. The troops in four other vessels which set sail from

Medenhlick, and were pursued by Count Megen in small boats, were more

successful. A contrary wind had forced them out of their course and

driven them ashore on the coast of Gueldres, where they all got safe to

land; crossing the Rhine, near Heusen, they fortunately escaped into

Cleves, where they tore their flags in pieces and dispersed. In North

Holland Count Megen overtook some squadrons who had lingered too long in

plundering the cloisters, and completely overpowered them. He

afterwards formed a junction with Noircarmes and garrisoned Amsterdam.

The Duke Erich of Brunswick also surprised three companies, the last

remains of the army of the Gueux, near Viane, where they were

endeavoring to take a battery, routed them and captured their leader,

Rennesse, who was shortly afterwards beheaded at the castle of

Freudenburg, in Utrecht. Subsequently, when Duke Erich entered Viane,

he found nothing but deserted streets, the inhabitants having left it

with the garrison on the first alarm. He immediately razed the

fortifications, and reduced this arsenal of the Gueux to an open town

without defences. All the originators of the league were now dispersed;

Brederode and Louis of Nassau had fled to Germany, and Counts

Hogstraten, Bergen, and Kuilemberg had followed their example.

Mansfeld had seceded, the brothers Van Battenburg awaited in prison an

ignomonious fate, while Thoulouse alone had found an honorable death on

the field of battle. Those of the confederates who had escaped the

sword of the enemy and the axe of the executioner had saved nothing but

their lives, and thus the title which they had assumed for show became

at last a terrible reality.

Such was the inglorious end of the noble league, which in its beginning

awakened such fair hopes and promised to become a powerful protection

against oppression. Unanimity was its strength, distrust and internal

dissension its ruin. It brought to light and developed many rare and

beautiful virtues, but it wanted the most indispensable of all, prudence

and moderation, without which any undertaking must miscarry, and all the

fruits of the most laborious industry perish. If its objects had been

as pure as it pretended, or even had they remained as pure as they

really were at its first establishment, it might have defied the

unfortunate combination of circumstances which prematurely overwhelmed

it, and even if unsuccessful it would still have deserved an honorable

mention in history. But it is too evident that the confederate nobles,

whether directly or indirectly, took a greater share in the frantic

excesses of the Iconoclasts than comported with the dignity and

blamelessness of their confederation, and many among them openly

exchanged their own good cause for the mad enterprise of these worthless

vagabonds. The restriction of the Inquisition and a mitigation of the

cruel inhumanity of the edicts must be laid to the credit of the league;

but this transient relief was dearly purchased, at the cost of so many

of the best and bravest citizens, who either lost their lives in the

field, or in exile carried their wealth and industry to another quarter

of the world; and of the presence of Alva and the Spanish arms. Many,

too, of its peaceable citizens, who without its dangerous temptations

would never have been seduced from the ranks of peace and order, were

beguiled by the hope of success into the most culpable enterprises, and

by their failure plunged into ruin and misery. But it cannot be denied

that the league atoned in some measure for these wrongs by positive

benefits. It brought together and emboldened many whom a selfish

pusillanimity kept asunder and inactive; it diffused a salutary public

spirit amongst the Belgian people, which the oppression of the

government had almost entirely extinguished, and gave unanimity and a

common voice to the scattered members of the nation, the absence of

which alone makes despots bold. The attempt, indeed, failed, and the

knots, too carelessly tied, were quickly unloosed; but it was through

such failures that the nation was eventually to attain to a firm and

lasting union, which should bid defiance to change.

The total destruction of the Geusen army quickly brought the Dutch towns

also back to their obedience, and in the provinces there remained not a

single place which had not submitted to the regent; but the increasing

emigration, both of the natives and the foreign residents, threatened

the country with depopulation. In Amsterdam the crowd of fugitives was

so great that vessels were wanting to convey them across the North Sea

and the Zuyderzee, and that flourishing emporium beheld with dismay the

approaching downfall of its prosperity. Alarmed at this general flight,

the regent hastened to write letters to all the towns, to encourage the

citizens to remain, and by fair promises to revive a hope of better and

milder measures. In the king’s name she promised to all who would

freely swear to obey the state and the church complete indemnity, and by

public proclamation invited the fugitives to trust to the royal clemency

and return to their homes. She engaged also to relieve the nation from

the dreaded presence of a Spanish army, even if it were already on the

frontiers; nay, she went so far as to drop hints that, if necessary,

means might be found to prevent it by force from entering the provinces,

as she was fully determined not to relinquish to another the glory of a

peace which it had cost her so much labor to effect. Few, however,

returned in reliance upon her word, and these few had cause to repent it

in the sequel; many thousands had already quitted the country, and

several thousands more quickly followed them. Germany and England were

filled with Flemish emigrants, who, wherever they settled, retained

their usages and manners, and even their costume, unwilling to come to

the painful conclusion that they should never again see their native

land, and to give up all hopes of return. Few carried with them any

remains of their former affluence; the greater portion had to beg their

way, and bestowed on their adopted country nothing but industrious skill

and honest citizens.

And now the regent hastened to report to the king tidings such as,

during her whole administration, she had never before been able to

gratify him with. She announced to him that she had succeeded in

restoring quiet throughout the provinces, and that she thought herself

strong enough to maintain it. The sects were extirpated, and the Roman

Catholic worship re-established in all its former splendor; the rebels

had either already met with, or were awaiting in prison, the punishment

they deserved; the towns were secured by adequate garrisons. There was

therefore no necessity for sending Spanish troops into the Netherlands,

and nothing to justify their entrance. Their arrival would tend to

destroy the existing repose, which it had cost so much to establish,

would check the much-desired revival of commerce and trade, and, while

it would involve the country in new expenses, would at the same time

deprive them of the only means of supporting them. The mere rumor of

the approach of a Spanish army had stripped the country of many

thousands of its most valuable citizens; its actual appearance would

reduce it to a desert. As there was no longer any enemy to subdue, or

rebellion to suppress, the people would see no motive for the march of

this army but punishment and revenge, and under this supposition its

arrival would neither be welcomed nor honored. No longer excused by

necessity, this violent expedient would assume the odious aspect of

oppression, would exasperate the national mind afresh, drive the

Protestants to desperation, and arm their brethren in other countries in

their defence. The regent, she said, had in the king’s name promised

the nation it should be relieved from this foreign army, and to this

stipulation she was principally indebted for the present peace; she

could not therefore guarantee its long continuance if her pledge was not

faithfully fulfilled. The Netherlands would receive him as their

sovereign, the king, with every mark of attachment and veneration, but

he must come as a father to bless, not as a despot to chastise them.

Let him come to enjoy the peace which she had bestowed on the country,

but not to destroy it afresh.

ALVA’S ARMAMENT AND EXPEDITION TO THE NETHERLANDS.

But it was otherwise determined in the council at Madrid. The minister,

Granvella, who, even while absent himself, ruled the Spanish cabinet by

his adherents; the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor, Spinosa, and the Duke of

Alva, swayed respectively by hatred, a spirit of persecution, or private

interest, had outvoted the milder councils of the Prince Ruy Gomes of

Eboli, the Count of Feria, and the king’s confessor, Fresneda. The

insurrection, it was urged by the former, was indeed quelled for the

present, but only because the rebels were awed by the rumor of the

king’s armed approach; it was to fear of punishment alone, and not to

sorrow for their crime, that the present calm was to be ascribed, and

it would soon again be broken if that feeling were allowed to subside.

In fact, the offences of the people fairly afforded the king the

opportunity he had so long desired of carrying out his despotic views

with an appearance of justice. The peaceable settlement for which the

regent took credit to herself was very far from according with his

wishes, which sought rather for a legitimate pretext to deprive the

provinces of their privileges, which were so obnoxious to his despotic

temper.

With an impenetrable dissimulation Philip had hitherto fostered the

general delusion that he was about to visit the provinces in person,

while all along nothing could have been more remote from his real

intentions. Travelling at any time ill suited the methodical regularity

of his life, which moved with the precision of clockwork; and his narrow

and sluggish intellect was oppressed by the variety and multitude of

objects with which new scenes crowded it. The difficulties and dangers

which would attend a journey to the Netherlands must, therefore, have

been peculiarly alarming to his natural timidity and love of ease. Why

should he, who, in all that he did, was accustomed to consider himself

alone, and to make men accommodate themselves to his principles, not his

principles to men, undertake so perilous an expedition, when he could

see neither the advantage nor necessity of it. Moreover, as it had ever

been to him an utter impossibility to separate, even for a moment, his

person from his royal dignity, which no prince ever guarded so

tenaciously and pedantically as himself, so the magnificence and

ceremony which in his mind were inseparably connected with such a

journey, and the expenses which, on this account, it would necessarily

occasion, were of themselves sufficient motives to account for his

indisposition to it, without its being at all requisite to call in the

aid of the influence of his favorite, Ruy Gomes, who is said to have

desired to separate his rival, the Duke of Alva, from the king. Little,

however, as be seriously intended this journey, he still deemed it

advisable to keep up the expectation of it, as well with a view of

sustaining the courage of the loyal as of preventing a dangerous

combination of the disaffected, and stopping the further progress

of the rebels.

In order to carry on the deception as long as possible, Philip made

extensive preparations for his departure, and neglected nothing which

could be required for such an event. He ordered ships to be fitted out,

appointed the officers and others to attend him. To allay the suspicion

such warlike preparations might excite in all foreign courts, they were

informed through his ambassadors of his real design. He applied to the

King of France for a passage for himself and attendants through that

kingdom, and consulted the Duke of Savoy as to the preferable route. He

caused a list to be drawn up of all the towns and fortified places that

lay in his march, and directed all the intermediate distances to be

accurately laid down. Orders were issued for taking a map and survey of

the whole extent of country between Savoy and Burgundy, the duke being

requested to furnish the requisite surveyors and scientific officers.

To such lengths was the deception carried that the regent was commanded

to hold eight vessels at least in readiness off Zealand, and to despatch

them to meet the king the instant she heard of his having sailed from

Spain; and these ships she actually got ready, and caused prayers to be

offered up in all the churches for the king’s safety during the voyage,

though in secret many persons did not scruple to remark that in his

chamber at Madrid his majesty would not have much cause to dread the

storms at sea. Philip played his part with such masterly skill that the

Belgian ambassadors at Madrid, Lords Bergen and Montigny, who at first

had disbelieved in the sincerity of his pretended journey, began at last

to be alarmed, and infected their friends in Brussels with similar

apprehensions. An attack of tertian ague, which about this time the

king suffered, or perhaps feigned, in Segovia, afforded a plausible

pretence for postponing his journey, while meantime the preparations for

it were carried on with the utmost activity. At last, when the urgent

and repeated solicitations of his sister compelled him to make a

definite explanation of his plans, he gave orders that the Duke of Alva

should set out forthwith with an army, both to clear the way before him

of rebels, and to enhance the splendor of his own royal arrival. He did

not yet venture to throw off the mask and announce the duke as his

substitute. He had but too much reason to fear that the submission

which his Flemish nobles would cheerfully yield to their sovereign would

be refused to one of his servants, whose cruel character was well known,

and who, moreover, was detested as a foreigner and the enemy of their

constitution. And, in fact, the universal belief that the king was soon

to follow, which long survived Alva’s entrance into the country,

restrained the outbreak of disturbances which otherwise would assuredly

have been caused by the cruelties which marked the very opening of the

duke’s government.

The clergy of Spain, and especially the Inquisition, contributed richly

towards the expenses of this expedition as to a holy war. Throughout

Spain the enlisting was carried on with the utmost zeal. The viceroys

and governors of Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, and Milan received orders to

select the best of their Italian and Spanish troops in the garrisons and

despatch them to the general rendezvous in the Genoese territory, where

the Duke of Alva would exchange them for the Spanish recruits which he

should bring with him. At the same time the regent was commanded to

hold in readiness a few more regiments of German infantry in Luxembourg,

under the command of the Counts Eberstein, Schaumburg, and Lodrona, and

also some squadrons of light cavalry in the Duchy of Burgundy to

reinforce the Spanish general immediately on his entrance into the

provinces. The Count of Barlaimont was commissioned to furnish the

necessary provision for the armament, and a sum of two hundred thousand

gold florins was remitted to the regent to enable her to meet these

expenses and to maintain her own troops.

The French court, however, under pretence of the danger to be

apprehended from the Huguenots, had refused to allow the Spanish army to

pass through France. Philip applied to the Dukes of Savoy and Lorraine,

who were too dependent upon him to refuse his request. The former

merely stipulated that he should be allowed to maintain two thousand

infantry and a squadron of horse at the king’s expense in order to

protect his country from the injuries to which it might otherwise be

exposed from the passage of the Spanish army. At the same time he

undertook to provide the necessary supplies for its maintenance during

the transit.

The rumor of this arrangement roused the Huguenots, the Genevese, the

Swiss, and the Grisons. The Prince of Conde and the Admiral Coligny

entreated Charles IX. not to neglect so favorable a moment of inflicting

a deadly blow on the hereditary foe of France. With the aid of the

Swiss, the Genevese, and his own Protestant subjects, it would, they

alleged, be an easy matter to destroy the flower of the Spanish troops

in the narrow passes of the Alpine mountains; and they promised to

support him in this undertaking with an army of fifty thousand

Huguenots. This advice, however, whose dangerous object was not easily

to be mistaken, was plausibly declined by Charles IX., who assured them

that he was both able and anxious to provide for the security of his

kingdom. He hastily despatched troops to cover the French frontiers;

and the republics of Geneva, Bern, Zurich, and the Grisons followed his

example, all ready to offer a determined opposition to the dreaded enemy

of their religion and their liberty.

On the 5th of May, 1567, the Duke of Alva set sail from Carthagena with

thirty galleys, which had been furnished by Andrew Doria and the Duke

Cosmo of Florence, and within eight days landed at Genoa, where the four

regiments were waiting to join him. But a tertian ague, with which he

was seized shortly after his arrival, compelled him to remain for some

days inactive in Lombardy--a delay of which the neighboring powers

availed themselves to prepare for defence. As soon as the duke

recovered he held at Asti, in Montferrat, a review of all his troops,

who were more formidable by their valor than by their numbers, since

cavalry and infantry together did not amount to much above ten thousand

men. In his long and perilous march he did not wish to encumber himself

with useless supernumeraries, which would only impede his progress and

increase the difficulty of supporting his army. These ten thousand

veterans were to form the nucleus of a greater army, which, according as

circumstances and occasion might require, he could easily assemble in

the Netherlands themselves.

This array, however, was as select as it was small. It consisted of the

remains of those victorious legions at whose head Charles V. had made

Europe tremble; sanguinary, indomitable bands, in whose battalions the

firmness of the old Macedonian phalanx lived again; rapid in their

evolutions from long practice, hardy and enduring, proud of their

leader’s success, and confident from past victories, formidable by their

licentiousness, but still more so by their discipline; let loose with

all the passions of a warmer climate upon a rich and peaceful country,

and inexorable towards an enemy whom the church had cursed. Their

fanatical and sanguinary spirit, their thirst for glory and innate

courage was aided by a rude sensuality, the instrument by which the

Spanish general firmly and surely ruled his otherwise intractable

troops. With a prudent indulgence he allowed riot and voluptuousness

to reign throughout the camp. Under his tacit connivance Italian

courtezans followed the standards; even in the march across the

Apennines, where the high price of the necessaries of life compelled him

to reduce his force to the smallest possible number, he preferred to

have a few regiments less rather than to leave behind these instruments

of voluptuousness.

[The bacchanalian procession of this army contrasted strangely

enough with the gloomy seriousness and pretended sanctity of his

aim. The number of these women was so great that to restrain the

disorders and quarrelling among themselves they hit upon the

expedient of establishing a discipline of their own. They ranged

themselves under particular flags, marched in ranks and sections,

and in admirable military order, after each battalion, and classed

themselves with strict etiquette according to their rank and pay.]

But industriously as Alva strove to relax the morals of his soldiers,

he enforced the more rigidly a strict military discipline, which was

interrupted only by a victory or rendered less severe by a battle.

For all this he had, he said, the authority of the Athenian General

Iphicrates, who awarded the prize of valor to the pleasure-loving and

rapacious soldier. The more irksome the restraint by which the passions

of the soldiers were kept in check, the greater must have been the

vehemence with which they broke forth at the sole outlet which was left

open to them.

The duke divided his infantry, which was about nine thousand strong, and

chiefly Spaniards, into four brigades, and gave the command of them to

four Spanish officers. Alphonso of Ulloa led the Neapolitan brigade of

nine companies, amounting to three thousand two hundred and thirty men;

Sancho of Lodogno commanded the Milan brigade, three thousand two

hundred men in ten companies; the Sicilian brigade, with the same number

of companies, and consisting of sixteen hundred men, was under Julian

Romero, an experienced warrior, who had already fought on Belgian

ground.

[The same officer who commanded one of the Spanish regiments about

which so much complaint had formerly been made in the States-

General.]

Gonsalo of Braccamonte headed that of Sardinia, which was raised by

three companies of recruits to the full complement of the former. To

every company, moreover, were added fifteen Spanish musqueteers. The

horse, in all twelve hundred strong, consisted of three Italian, two

Albanian, and seven Spanish squadrons, light and heavy cavalry, and the

chief command was held by Ferdinand and Frederick of Toledo, the two

sons of Alva. Chiappin Vitelli, Marquis of Cetona, was field-marshal;

a celebrated general whose services had been made over to the King of

Spain by Cosmo of Florence; and Gabriel Serbellon was general of

artillery. The Duke of Savoy lent Alva an experienced engineer, Francis

Pacotto, of Urbino, who was to be employed in the erection of new

fortifications. His standard was likewise followed by a number of

volunteers, and the flower of the Spanish nobility, of whom the greater

part had fought under Charles V. in Germany, Italy, and before Tunis.

Among these were Christopher Mondragone, one of the ten Spanish heroes

who, near Mithlberg, swam across the Elbe with their swords between

their teeth, and, under a shower of bullets from the enemy, brought over

from the opposite shore the boats which the emperor required for the

construction of a bridge. Sancho of Avila, who had been trained to war

under Alva himself, Camillo of Monte, Francis Ferdugo, Karl Davila,

Nicolaus Basta, and Count Martinego, all fired with a noble ardor,

either to commence their military career under so eminent a leader, or

by another glorious campaign under his command to crown the fame they

had already won. After the review the army marched in three divisions

across Mount Cenis, by the very route which sixteen centuries before

Hannibal is said to have taken. The duke himself led the van; Ferdinand

of Toledo, with whom was associated Lodogno as colonel, the centre; and

the Marquis of Cetona the rear. The Commissary General, Francis of

Ibarra, was sent before with General Serbellon to open the road for the

main body, and get ready the supplies at the several quarters for the

night. The places which the van left in the morning were entered in the

evening by the centre, which in its turn made room on the following day

for the rear. Thus the army crossed the Alps of Savoy by regular

stages, and with the fourteenth day completed that dangerous passage.

A French army of observation accompanied it side by side along the

frontiers of Dauphins, and the course of the Rhone, and the allied army

of the Genevese followed it on the right, and was passed by it at a

distance of seven miles. Both these armies of observation carefully

abstained from any act of hostility, and were merely intended to cover

their own frontiers. As the Spanish legions ascended and descended the

steep mountain crags, or while they crossed the rapid Iser, or file by

file wound through the narrow passes of the rocks, a handful of men

would have been sufficient to put an entire stop to their march, and to

drive them back into the mountains, where they would have been

irretrievably lost, since at each place of encampment supplies were

provided for no more than a single day, and for a third part only of the

whole force. But a supernatural awe and dread of the Spanish name

appeared to have blinded the eyes of the enemy so that they did not

perceive their advantage, or at least did not venture to profit by it.

In order to give them as little opportunity as possible of remembering

it, the Spanish general hastened through this dangerous pass.

Convinced, too, that if his troops gave the slightest umbrage he was

lost, the strictest discipline was maintained during the march; not a

single peasant’s hut, not a single field was injured; and never,

perhaps, in the memory of man was so numerous an army led so far in such

excellent order.

[Once only on entering Lorraine three horsemen ventured to drive

away a few sheep from a flock, of which circumstance the duke was

no sooner informed than he sent back to the owner what had been

taken from him and sentenced the offenders to be hung. This

sentence was, at the intercession of the Lorraine general, who had

come to the frontiers to pay his respects to the duke, executed on

only one of the three, upon whom the lot fell at the drum-head.]

Destined as this army was for vengeance and murder, a malignant and

baleful star seemed to conduct it safe through all dangers; and it would

be difficult to decide whether the prudence of its general or the

blindness of its enemies is most to be wondered at.

In Franche Comte, four squadrons of Burgundian cavalry, newly-raised,

joined the main army, which, at Luxembourg, was also reinforced by three

regiments of German infantry under the command of Counts Eberstein,

Schaumburg, and Lodrona. From Thionville, where he halted a few days,

Alva sent his salutations to the regent by Francis of Ibarra, who was,

at the same time, directed to consult her on the quartering of the

troops. On her part, Noircarmes and Barlairnont were despatched to the

Spanish camp to congratulate the duke on his arrival, and to show him

the customary marks of honor. At the same time they were directed to

ask him to produce the powers entrusted to him by the king, of which,

however, he only showed a part. The envoys of the regent were followed

by swarms of the Flemish nobility, who thought they could not hasten

soon enough to conciliate the favor of the new viceroy, or by a timely

submission avert the vengeance which was preparing. Among them was

Count Egmont. As he came forward the duke pointed him out to the

bystanders. “Here comes an arch-heretic,” he exclaimed, loud enough to

be heard by Egmont himself, who, surprised at these words, stopped and

changed color. But when the duke, in order to repair his imprudence,

went up to him with a serene countenance, and greeted him with a

friendly embrace, the Fleming was ashamed of his fears, and made light

of this warning, by putting some frivolous interpretation upon it.

Egmont sealed this new friendship with a present of two valuable

chargers, which Alva accepted with a grave condescension.

Upon the assurance of the regent that the provinces were in the

enjoyment of perfect peace, and that no opposition was to be apprehended

from any quarter, the duke discharged some German regiments, which had

hitherto drawn their pay from the Netherlands. Three thousand six

hundred men, under the command of Lodrona, were quartered in Antwerp,

from which town the Walloon garrison, in which full reliance could not

be placed, was withdrawn; garrisons proportionably stronger were thrown

into Ghent and other important places; Alva himself marched with the

Milan brigade towards Brussels, whither he was accompanied by a splendid

cortege of the noblest in the land.

Here, as in all the other towns of the Netherlands, fear and terror had

preceded him, and all who were conscious of any offences, and even those

who were sensible of none, alike awaited his approach with a dread

similar to that with which criminals see the coming of their day of

trial. All who could tear themselves from the ties of family, property,

and country had already fled, or now at last took to flight. The

advance of the Spanish army had already, according to the report of the

regent, diminished the population of the provinces by the loss of one

hundred thousand citizens, and this general flight still continued. But

the arrival of the Spanish general could not be more hateful to the

people of the Netherlands than it was distressing and dispiriting to the

regent. At last, after so many years of anxiety, she had begun to taste

the sweets of repose, and that absolute-authority, which had been the

long-cherished object of eight years of a troubled and difficult

administration. This late fruit of so much anxious industry, of so many

cares and nightly vigils, was now to be wrested from her by a stranger,

who was to be placed at once in possession of all the advantages which

she had been forced to extract from adverse circumstances, by a long

and tedious course of intrigue and patient endurance. Another was

lightly to bear away the prize of promptitude, and to triumph by more

rapid success over her superior but less glittering merits. Since the

departure of the minister, Granvella, she had tasted to the full the

pleasures of independence. The flattering homage of the nobility, which

allowed her more fully to enjoy the shadow of power, the more they

deprived her of its substance, had, by degrees, fostered her vanity to

such an extent, that she at last estranged by her coldness even the most

upright of all her servants, the state counsellor Viglius, who always

addressed her in the language of truth. All at once a censor of her

actions was placed at her side, a partner of her power was associated

with her, if indeed it was not rather a master who was forced upon her,

whose proud, stubborn, and imperious spirit, which no courtesy could

soften, threatened the deadliest wounds to her self-love and vanity. To

prevent his arrival she had, in her representations to the king, vainly

exhausted every political argument. To no purpose had she urged that

the utter ruin of the commerce of the Netherlands would be the

inevitable consequence of; this introduction of the Spanish troops; in

vain had she assured the king that peace was universally restored, and

reminded him of her own services in procuring it, which deserved, she

thought, a better guerdon than to see all the fruits of her labors

snatched from her and given to a foreigner, and more than all, to behold

all the good which she had effected destroyed by a new and different

line of conduct. Even when the duke had already crossed Mount Cenis she

made one more attempt, entreating him at least to diminish his army; but

that also failed, for the duke insisted upon acting up to the powers

entrusted to him. In poignant grief she now awaited his approach, and

with the tears she shed for her country were mingled those of offended

self-love.

On the 22d of August, 1567, the Duke of Alva appeared before the gates

of Brussels. His army immediately took up their quarters in the

suburbs, and he himself made it his first duty to pay his respects to

the sister of his king. She gave him a private audience on the plea of

suffering from sickness. Either the mortification she had undergone had

in reality a serious effect upon her health, or, what is not improbable,

she had recourse to this expedient to pain his haughty spirit, and in

some degree to lessen his triumph. He delivered to her letters from the

king, and laid before her a copy of his own appointment, by which the

supreme command of the whole military force of the Netherlands was

committed to him, and from which, therefore, it would appear, that the

administration of civil affairs remained, as heretofore, in the hands of

the regent. But as soon as he was alone with her he produced a new

commission, which was totally different from the former. According to

this, the power was delegated to him of making war at his discretion,

of erecting fortifications, of appointing and dismissing at pleasure the

governors of provinces, the commandants of towns, and other officers of

the king; of instituting inquiries into the past troubles, of punishing

those who originated them, and of rewarding the loyal. Powers of this

extent, which placed him almost on a level with a sovereign prince, and

far surpassed those of the regent herself, caused her the greatest

consternation, and it was with difficulty that she could conceal her

emotion. She asked the duke whether he had not even a third commission,

or some special orders in reserve which went still further, and were

drawn up still more precisely, to which he replied distinctly enough in

the affirmative, but at the same time gave her to understand that this

commission might be too full to suit the present occasion, and would be

better brought into play hereafter with due regard to time and

circumstances. A few days after his arrival he caused a copy of the

first instructions to be laid before the several councils and the

states, and had them printed to insure their rapid circulation. As the

regent resided in the palace, he took up his quarters temporarily in

Kuilemberg house, the same in which the association of the Gueux had

received its name, and before which, through a wonderful vicissitude,

Spanish tyranny now planted its flag.

A dead silence reigned in Brussels, broken only at times by the unwonted

clang of arms. The duke had entered the town but a few hours when his

attendants, like bloodhounds that have been slipped, dispersed

themselves in all directions. Everywhere foreign faces were to be seen;

the streets were empty, all the houses carefully closed, all amusements

suspended, all public places deserted. The whole metropolis resembled a

place visited by the plague. Acquaintances hurried on without stopping

for their usual greeting; all hastened on the moment a Spaniard showed

himself in the streets. Every sound startled them, as if it were the

knock of the officials of justice at their doors; the nobility, in

trembling anxiety, kept to their houses; they shunned appearing in

public lest their presence should remind the new viceroy of some past

offence. The two nations now seemed to have exchanged characters. The

Spaniard had become the talkative man and the Brabanter taciturn;

distrust and fear had scared away the spirit of cheerfulness and mirth;

a constrained gravity fettered even the play of the features. Every

moment the impending blow was looked for with dread.

This general straining of expectation warned the duke to hasten the

accomplishment of his plans before they should be anticipated by the

timely flight of his victims. His first object was to secure the

suspected nobles, in order, at once and forever, to deprive the faction

of its leaders, and the nation, whose freedom was to be crushed, of all

its supporters. By a pretended affability he had succeeded in lulling

their first alarm, and in restoring Count Egmont in particular to his

former perfect confidence, for which purpose he artfully employed his

sons, Ferdinand and Frederick of Toledo, whose companionableness and

youth assimilated more easily with the Flemish character. By this

skilful advice he succeeded also in enticing Count Horn to Brussels,

who had hitherto thought it advisable to watch the first measures of the

duke from a distance, but now suffered himself to be seduced by the good

fortune of his friend. Some of the nobility, and Count Egmont at the

head of them, even resumed their former gay style of living. But they

themselves did not do so with their whole hearts, and they had not many

imitators. Kuilemberg house was incessantly besieged by a numerous

crowd, who thronged around the person of the new viceroy, and exhibited

an affected gayety on their countenances, while their hearts were wrung

with distress and fear. Egmont in particular assumed the appearance of

a light heart, entertaining the duke’s sons, and being feted by them in

return. Meanwhile, the duke was fearful lest so fair an opportunity for

the accomplishment of his plans might not last long, and lest some act

of imprudence might destroy the feeling of security which had tempted

both his victims voluntarily to put themselves into his power; he only

waited for a third; Hogstraten also was to be taken in the same net.

Under a plausible pretext of business he therefore summoned him to the

metropolis. At the same time that he purposed to secure the three

counts in Brussels, Colonel Lodrona was to arrest the burgomaster,

Strahlen, in Antwerp, an intimate friend of the Prince of Orange, and

suspected of having favored the Calvinists; another officer was to seize

the private secretary of Count Egmont, whose name was John Cassembrot

von Beckerzeel, as also some secretaries of Count Horn, and was to

possess themselves of their papers.

When the day arrived which had been fixed upon for the execution of this

plan, the duke summoned all the counsellors and knights before him to

confer with them upon matters of state. On this occasion the Duke of

Arschot, the Counts Mansfeld, Barlaimont, and Aremberg attended on the

part of the Netherlands, and on the part of the Spaniards besides the

duke’s sons, Vitelli, Serbellon, and Ibarra. The young Count Mansfeld,

who likewise appeared at the meeting, received a sign from his father to

withdraw with all speed, and by a hasty flight avoid the fate which was

impending over him as a former member of the Geusen league. The duke

purposely prolonged the consultation to give time before he acted for

the arrival of the couriers from Antwerp, who were to bring him the

tidings of the arrest of the other parties. To avoid exciting any

suspicion, the engineer, Pacotto, was required to attend the meeting to

lay before it the plans for some fortifications. At last intelligence

was brought him that Lodrona had successfully executed his commission.

Upon this the duke dexterously broke off the debate and dismissed the

council. And now, as Count Egmont was about to repair to the apartment

of Don Ferdinand, to finish a game that he had commenced with him, the

captain of the duke’s body guard, Sancho D’Avila, stopped him, and

demanded his sword in the king’s name. At the same time he was

surrounded by a number of Spanish soldiers, who, as had been

preconcerted, suddenly advanced from their concealment. So unexpected

a blow deprived Egmont for some moments of all powers of utterance and

recollection; after a while, however, he collected himself, and taking

his sword from his side with dignified composure, said, as he delivered

it into the hands of the Spaniard, “This sword has before this on more

than one occasion successfully defended the king’s cause.” Another

Spanish officer arrested Count Horn as he was returning to his house

without the least suspicion of danger. Horn’s first inquiry was after

Egmont. On being told that the same fate had just happened to his

friend he surrendered himself without resistance. “I have suffered

myself to be guided by him,” he exclaimed, “it is fair that I should

share his destiny.” The two counts were placed in confinement in

separate apartments. While this was going on in the interior of

Kuilemberg house the whole garrison were drawn out under arms in front

of it. No one knew what had taken place inside, a mysterious terror

diffused itself throughout Brussels until rumor spread the news of this

fatal event. Each felt as if he himself were the sufferer; with many

indignation at Egmont’s blind infatuation preponderated over sympathy

for his fate; all rejoiced that Orange had escaped. The first question

of the Cardinal Granvella, too, when these tidings reached him in Rome,

is said to have been, whether they had taken the Silent One also. On

being answered in the negative he shook his head “then as they have let

him escape they have got nothing.” Fate ordained better for the Count

of Hogstraten. Compelled by ill-health to travel slowly, he was met by

the report of this event while he was yet on his way. He hastily turned

back, and fortunately escaped destruction. Immediately after Egmont’s

seizure a writing was extorted from him, addressed to the commandant of

the citadel of Ghent, ordering that officer to deliver the fortress to

the Spanish Colonel Alphonso d’Ulloa. Upon this the two counts were

then (after they had been for some weeks confined in Brussels) conveyed

under a guard of three thousand Spaniards to Ghent, where they remained

imprisoned till late in the following year. In the meantime all their

papers had been seized. Many of the first nobility who, by the

pretended kindness of the Duke of Alva, had allowed themselves to be

cajoled into remaining experienced the same fate. Capital punishment

was also, without further delay, inflicted on all who before the duke’s

arrival had been taken with arms in their hands. Upon the news of

Egmont’s arrest a second body of about twenty thousand inhabitants took

up the wanderer’s staff, besides the one hundred thousand who, prudently

declining to await the arrival of the Spanish general, had already

placed themselves in safety.

[A great part of these fugitives helped to strengthen the army of

the Huguenots, who had taken occasion, from the passage of the

Spanish army through Lorraine, to assemble their forces, and now

pressed Charles IX. hard. On these grounds the French court

thought it had a right to demand aid from the regent of the

Netherlands. It asserted that the Huguenots had looked upon the

march of the Spanish army as the result of a preconcerted plan

which had been formed against them by the two courts at Bayonne and

that this had roused them from their slumber. That consequently it

behooved the Spanish court to assist in extricating the French king

from difficulties into which the latter had been brought simply by

the march of the Spanish troops. Alva actually sent the Count of

Aremberg with a considerable force to join the army of the Queen

Mother in France, and even offered to command these subsidiaries in

person, which, however, was declined. Strada, 206. Thuan, 541.]

After so noble a life had been assailed no one counted himself safe any

longer; but many found cause to repent that they had so long deferred

this salutary step; for every day flight was rendered more difficult,

for the duke ordered all the ports to be closed, and punished the

attempt at emigration with death. The beggars were now esteemed

fortunate, who had abandoned country and property in order to preserve

at least their liberty and their lives.

ALVA’S FIRST MEASURES, AND DEPARTURE OF THE DUCHESS OF PARMA.

Alva’s first step, after securing the most suspected of the nobles, was

to restore the Inquisition to its former authority, to put the decrees

of Trent again in force, abolish the “moderation,” and promulgate anew

the edicts against heretics in all their original severity. The court

of Inquisition in Spain had pronounced the whole nation of the

Netherlands guilty of treason in the highest degree, Catholics and

heterodox, loyalists and rebels, without distinction; the latter as

having offended by overt acts, the former as having incurred equal guilt

by their supineness. From this sweeping condemnation a very few were

excepted, whose names, however, were purposely reserved, while the

general sentence was publicly confirmed by the king. Philip declared

himself absolved from all his promises, and released from all

engagements which the regent in his name had entered into with the

people of the Netherlands, and all the justice which they had in future

to expect from him must depend on his own good-will and pleasure. All

who had aided in the expulsion of the minister, Granvella, who had taken

part in the petition of the confederate nobles, or had but even spoken

in favor of it; all who had presented a petition against the decrees of

Trent, against the edicts relating to religion, or against the

installation of the bishops; all who had permitted the public

preachings, or had only feebly resisted them; all who had worn the

insignia of the Gueux, had sung Geusen songs, or who in any way

whatsoever had manifested their joy at the establishment of the league;

all who had sheltered or concealed the reforming preachers, attended

Calvinistic funerals, or had even merely known of their secret meetings,

and not given information of them; all who had appealed to the national

privileges; all, in fine, who had expressed an opinion that they ought

to obey God rather than man; all these indiscriminately were declared

liable to the penalties which the law imposed upon any violation of the

royal prerogative, and upon high treason; and these penalties were,

according to the instruction which Alva had received, to be executed on

the guilty persons without forbearance or favor; without regard to rank,

sex, or age, as an example to posterity, and for a terror to all future

times. According to this declaration there was no longer an innocent

person to be found in the whole Netherlands, and the new viceroy had it

in his power to make a fearful choice of victims. Property and life

were alike at his command, and whoever should have the good fortune to

preserve one or both must receive them as the gift of his generosity and

humanity. By this stroke of policy, as refined as it was detestable,

the nation was disarmed, and unanimity rendered impossible. As it

absolutely depended on the duke’s arbitrary will upon whom the sentence

should be carried in force which had been passed without exception upon

all, each individual kept himself quiet, in order to escape, if

possible, the notice of the viceroy, and to avoid drawing the fatal

choice upon himself. Every one, on the other hand, in whose favor he

was pleased to make an exception stood in a degree indebted to him, and

was personally under an obligation which must be measured by the value

he set upon his life and property. As, however, this penalty could only

be executed on the smaller portion of the nation, the duke naturally

secured the greater by the strongest ties of fear and gratitude, and for

one whom he sought out as a victim he gained ten others whom he passed

over. As long as he continued true to this policy he remained in quiet

possession of his rule, even amid the streams of blood which he caused

to flow, and did not forfeit this advantage till the want of money

compelled him to impose a burden upon the nation which oppressed all

indiscriminately.

In order to be equal to this bloody occupation, the details of which

were fast accumulating, and to be certain of not losing a single victim

through the want of instruments; and, on the other hand, to render his

proceedings independent of the states, with whose privileges they were

so much at variance, and who, indeed, were far too humane for him, he

instituted an extraordinary court of justice. This court consisted of

twelve criminal judges, who, according to their instructions, to the

very letter of which they must adhere, were to try and pronounce

sentence upon those implicated in the past disturbances. The mere

institution of such a board was a violation of the liberties of the

country, which expressly stipulated that no citizen should be tried out

of his own province; but the duke filled up the measure of his injustice

when, contrary to the most sacred privileges of the nation, he proceeded

to give seats and votes in that court to Spaniards, the open and avowed

enemies of Belgian liberty. He himself was the president of this court,

and after him a certain licentiate, Vargas, a Spaniard by birth, of

whose iniquitous character the historians of both parties are unanimous;

cast out like a plague-spot from his own country, where he had violated

one of his wards, he was a shameless, hardened villain, in whose mind

avarice, lust, and the thirst for blood struggled for ascendancy. The

principal members were Count Aremberg, Philip of Noircarmes, and Charles

of Barlaimont, who, however, never sat in it; Hadrian Nicolai,

chancellor of Gueldres; Jacob Mertens and Peter Asset, presidents of

Artois and Flanders; Jacob Hesselts and John de la Porte, counsellors of

Ghent; Louis del Roi, doctor of theology, and by birth a Spaniard; John

du Bois, king’s advocate; and De la’Torre, secretary of the court. In

compliance with the representations of Viglius the privy council was

spared any part in this tribunal; nor was any one introduced into it

from the great council at Malines. The votes of the members were only

recommendatory, not conclusive, the final sentence being reserved by the

duke to himself. No particular time was fixed for the sitting of the

court; the members, however, assembled at noon, as often as the duke

thought good. But after the expiration of the third month Alva began to

be less frequent in his attendance, and at last resigned his place

entirely to his favorite, Vargas, who filled it with such odious fitness

that in a short time all the members, with the exception merely of the

Spanish doctor, Del Rio, and the secretary, De la Torre, weary of the

atrocities of which they were compelled to be both eyewitnesses and

accomplices, remained away from the assembly.

[The sentences passed upon the most eminent persons (for example,

the sentence of death passed upon Strahlen, the burgomaster of

Antwerp), were signed only by Vargas, Del Rio, and De la Torre.]

It is revolting to the feelings to think how the lives of the noblest

and best were thus placed at the mercy of Spanish vagabonds, and how

even the sanctuaries of the nation, its deeds and charters, were

unscrupulously ransacked, the seals broken, and the most secret

contracts between the sovereign and the state profaned and exposed.

[For an example of the unfeeling levity with which the most

important matters, even decisions in cases of life and death, were

treated in this sanguinary council, it may serve to relate what is

told of the Counsellor Hesselts. He was generally asleep during

the meeting, and when his turn came to vote on a sentence of death

he used to cry out, still half asleep: “Ad patibulum! Ad

patibulum!” so glibly did his tongue utter this word. It is

further to be remarked of this Hesselts, that his wife, a daughter

of the President Viglius, had expressly stipulated in the marriage-

contract that he should resign the dismal office of attorney for

the king, which made him detested by the whole nation. Vigl. ad

Hopp. lxvii., L.]

From the council of twelve (which, from the object of its institution,

was called the council for disturbances, but on account of its

proceedings is more generally known under the appellation of the council

of blood, a name which the nation in their exasperation bestowed upon

it), no appeal was allowed. Its proceedings could not be revised. Its

verdicts were irrevocable and independent of all other authority. No

other tribunal in the country could take cognizance of cases which

related to the late insurrection, so that in all the other courts

justice was nearly at a standstill. The great council at Malines was

as good as abolished; the authority of the council of state entirely

ceased, insomuch that its sittings were discontinued. On some rare

occasions the duke conferred with a few members of the late assembly,

but even when this did occur the conference was held in his cabinet, and

was no more than a private consultation, without any of the proper forms

being observed. No privilege, no charter of immunity, however carefully

protected, had any weight with the council for disturbances.

[Vargas, in a few words of barbarous Latin, demolished at once the

boasted liberties of the Netherlands. “Non curamus vestros

privilegios,” he replied to one who wished to plead the immunities

of the University of Louvain.]

It compelled all deeds and contracts to be laid before it, and often

forced upon them the most strained interpetations and alterations. If

the duke caused a sentence to be drawn out which there was reason to

fear might be opposed by the states of Brabant, it was legalized without

the Brabant seal. The most sacred rights of individuals were assailed,

and a tyranny without example forced its arbitrary will even into the

circle of domestic life. As the Protestants and rebels had hitherto

contrived to strengthen their party so much by marriages with the first

families in the country, the duke issued an edict forbidding all

Netherlanders, whatever might be their rank or office, under pain of

death and confiscation of property, to conclude a marriage without

previously obtaining his permission.

All whom the council for disturbances thought proper to summon before it

were compelled to appear, clergy as well as laity; the most venerable

heads of the senate, as well as the reprobate rabble of the Iconoclasts.

Whoever did not present himself, as indeed scarcely anybody did, was

declared an outlaw, and his property was confiscated; but those who were

rash or foolish enough to appear, or who were so unfortunate as to be

seized, were lost without redemption. Twenty, forty, often fifty were

summoned at the same time and from the same town, and the richest were

always the first on whom the thunderbolt descended. The meaner

citizens, who possessed nothing that could render their country and

their homes dear to them, were taken unawares and arrested without any

previous citation. Many eminent merchants, who had at their disposal

fortunes of from sixty thousand to one hundred thousand florins, were

seen with their hands tied behind their backs, dragged like common

vagabonds at the horse’s tail to execution, and in Valenciennes

fifty-five persons were decapitated at one time. All the prisons--and the

duke immediately on commencing his administration had built a great

number of them--were crammed full with the accused; hanging, beheading,

quartering, burning were the prevailing and ordinary occupations of the

day; the punishment of the galleys and banishment were more rarely heard

of, for there was scarcely any offence which was reckoned too trival to

be punished with death. Immense sums were thus brought into the treasury,

which, however, served rather to stimulate the new viceroy’s and his

colleagues’ thirst for gold than to quench it. It seemed to be his insane

purpose to make beggars of the whole people, and to throw all their

riches into the hands of the king and his servants. The yearly income

derived from these confiscations was computed to equal the revenues of

the first kingdoms of Europe; it is said to have been estimated, in a

report furnished to the king, at the incredible amount of twenty million

of dollars. But these proceedings were the more inhuman, as they often

bore hardest precisely upon the very persons who were the most peaceful

subjects, and most orthodox Roman Catholics, whom they could not want to

injure. Whenever an estate was confiscated all the creditors who had

claims upon it were defrauded. The hospitals, too, and public

institutions, which such properties had contributed to support, were now

ruined, and the poor, who had formerly drawn a pittance from this source,

were compelled to see their only spring of comfort dried up. Whoever

ventured to urge their well-grounded claims on the forfeited property

before the council of twelve (for no other tribunal dared to interfere

with these inquiries), consumed their substance in tedious and expensive

proceedings, and were reduced to beggary before they saw the end of them.

The histories of civilized states furnish but one instance of a similar

perversion of justice, of such violation of the rights of property, and

of such waste of human life; but Cinna, Sylla, and Marius entered

vanquished Rome as incensed victors, and practised without disguise what

the viceroy of the Netherlands performed under the venerable veil of the

laws.

Up to the end of the year 1567 the king’s arrival had been confidently

expected, and the well-disposed of the people had placed all their last

hopes on this event. The vessels, which Philip had caused to be

equipped expressly for the purpose of meeting him, still lay in the

harbor of Flushing, ready to sail at the first signal; and the town of

Brussels had consented to receive a Spanish garrison, simply because the

king, it was pretended, was to reside within its walls. But this hope

gradually vanished, as he put off the journey from one season to the

next, and the new viceroy very soon began to exhibit powers which

announced him less as a precursor of royalty than as an absolute

minister, whose presence made that of the monarch entirely superfluous.

To compete the distress of the provinces their last good angel was now

to leave them in the person of the regent. From the moment when the

production of the duke’s extensive powers left no doubt remaining as to

the practical termination of her own rule, Margaret had formed the

resolution of relinquishing the name also of regent. To see a successor

in the actual possession of a dignity which a nine years’ enjoyment had

made indispensable to her; to see the authority, the glory, the

splendor, the adoration, and all the marks of respect, which are the

usual concomitants of supreme power, pass over to another; and to feel

that she had lost that which she could never forget she had once held,

was more than a woman’s mind could endure; moreover, the Duke of Alva

was of all men the least calculated to make her feel her privation the

less painful by a forbearing use of his newly-acquired dignity. The

tranquillity of the country, too, which was put in jeopardy by this

divided rule, seemed to impose upon the duchess the necessity of

abdicating. Many governors of provinces refused, without an express

order from the court, to receive commands from the duke and to recognize

him as co-regent.

The rapid change of their point of attraction could not be met by the

courtiers so composedly and imperturbably but that the duchess observed

the alteration, and bitterly felt it. Even the few who, like State

Counsellor Viglius, still firmly adhered to her, did so less from

attachment to her person than from vexation at being displaced by

novices and foreigners, and from being too proud to serve a fresh

apprenticeship under a new viceroy. But far the greater number, with

all their endeavors to keep an exact mean, could not help making a

difference between the homage they paid to the rising sun and that which

they bestowed on the setting luminary. The royal palace in Brussels

became more and more deserted, while the throng at Kuilemberg house

daily increased. But what wounded the sensitiveness of the duchess most

acutely was the arrest of Horn and Egmont, which was planned and

executed by the duke without her knowledge or consent, just as if there

had been no such person as herself in existence. Alva did, indeed,

after the act was done, endeavor to appease her by declaring that the

design had been purposely kept secret from her in order to spare her

name from being mixed up in so odious a transaction; but no such

considerations of delicacy could close the wound which had been

inflicted on her pride. In order at once to escape all risk of similar

insults, of which the present was probably only a forerunner, she

despatched her private secretary, Macchiavell, to the court of her

brother, there to solicit earnestly for permission to resign the

regency. The request was granted without difficulty by the king, who

accompanied his consent with every mark of his highest esteem. He would

put aside (so the king expressed himself) his own advantage and that of

the provinces in order to oblige his sister. He sent a present of

thirty thousand dollars, and allotted to her a yearly pension of twenty

thousand.

[Which, however, does not appear to have been very punctually paid,

if a pamphlet maybe trusted which was printed during her lifetime.

(It bears the title: Discours sur la Blessure de Monseigneur Prince

d’Orange, 1582, without notice of the place where it was printed,

and is to be found in the Elector’s library at Dresden.) She

languished, it is there stated, at Namur in poverty, and so ill-

supported by her son (the then governor of the Netherlands), that

her own secretary, Aldrobandin, called her sojourn there an exile.

But the writer goes on to ask what better treatment could she

expect from a son who, when still very young, being on a visit to

her at Brussels, snapped his fingers at her behind her back.]

At the same time a diploma was forwarded to the Duke of Alva,

constituting him, in her stead, viceroy of all the Netherlands, with

unlimited powers.

Gladly would Margaret have learned that she was permitted to resign the

regency before a solemn assembly of the states, a wish which she had not

very obscurely hinted to the king. But she was not gratified. She was

particularly fond of solemnity, and the example of the Emperor, her

father, who had exhibited the extraordinary spectacle of his abdication

of the crown in this very city, seemed to have great attractions for

her. As she was compelled to part with supreme power, she could

scarcely be blamed for wishing to do so with as much splendor as

possible. Moreover, she had not failed to observe how much the general

hatred of the duke had effected in her own favor, and she looked,

therefore, the more wistfully forward to a scene, which promised to be

at once so flattering to her and so affecting. She would have been glad

to mingle her own tears with those which she hoped to see shed by the

Netherlanders for their good regent. Thus the bitterness of her descent

from the throne would have been alleviated by the expression of general

sympathy. Little as she had done to merit the general esteem during the

nine years of her administration, while fortune smiled upon her, and the

approbation of her sovereign was the limit to all her wishes, yet now

the sympathy of the nation had acquired a value in her eyes as the only

thing which could in some degree compensate to her for the

disappointment of all her other hopes. Fain would she have persuaded

herself that she had become a voluntary sacrifice to her goodness of

heart and her too humane feelings towards the Netherlanders. As,

however, the king was very far from being disposed to incur any danger

by calling a general assembly of the states, in order to gratify a mere

caprice of his sister, she was obliged to content herself with a

farewell letter to them. In this document she went over her whole

administration, recounted, not without ostentation, the difficulties

with which she had had to struggle, the evils which, by her dexterity,

she had prevented, and wound up at last by saying that she left a

finished work, and had to transfer to her successor nothing but the

punishment of offenders. The king, too, was repeatedly compelled to hear

the same statement, and she left nothing undone to arrogate to herself

the glory of any future advantages which it might be the good fortune of

the duke to realize. Her own merits, as something which did not admit

of a doubt, but was at the same time a burden oppressive to her modesty,

she laid at the feet of the king.

Dispassionate posterity may, nevertheless; hesitate to subscribe

unreservedly to this favorable opinion. Even though the united voice of

her contemporaries, and the testimony of the Netherlands themselves

vouch for it, a third party will not be denied the right to examine her

claims with stricter scrutiny. The popular mind, easily affected, is

but too ready to count the absence of a vice as an additional virtue,

and, under the pressure of existing evil, to give excess of praise for

past benefits.

The Netherlander seems to have concentrated all his hatred upon the

Spanish name. To lay the blame of the national evils on the regent

would tend to remove from the king and his minister the curses which he

would rather shower upon them alone and undividedly; and the Duke of

Alva’s government of the Netherlands was, perhaps, not the proper point

of view from which to test the merits of his predecessor. It was

undoubtedly no light task to meet the king’s expectations without

infringing the rights of the people and the duties of humanity; but

in struggling to effect these two contradictory objects Margaret had

accomplished neither. She had deeply injured the nation, while

comparatively she had done little service to the king. It is true that

she at last crushed the Protestant faction, but the accidental outbreak

of the Iconoclasts assisted her in this more than all her dexterity.

She certainly succeeded by her intrigues in dissolving the league of the

nobles, but not until the first blow had been struck at its roots by

internal dissensions. The object, to secure which she had for many

years vainly exhausted her whole policy, was effected at last by a single

enlistment of troops, for which, however, the orders were issued from

Madrid. She delivered to the duke, no doubt, a tranquillized country;

but it cannot be denied that the dread of his approach had the chief

share in tranquillizing it. By her reports she led the council in Spain

astray; because she never informed it of the disease, but only of the

occasional symptoms; never of the universal feeling and voice of the

nation, but only of the misconduct of factions. Her faulty

administration, moreover, drew the people into the crime, because

she exasperated without sufficiently awing them. She it was that

brought the murderous Alva into the country by leading the king to

believe that the disturbances in the provinces were to be ascribed, not

so much to the severity of the royal ordinances, as to the unworthiness

of those who were charged with their execution. Margaret possessed

natural capacity and intellect; and an acquired political tact enabled

her to meet any ordinary case; but she wanted that creative genius

which, for new and extraordinary emergencies, invents new maxims, or

wisely oversteps old ones. In a country where honesty was the best

policy, she adopted the unfortunate plan of practising her insidious

Italian policy, and thereby sowed the seeds of a fatal distrust in the

minds of the people. The indulgence which has been so liberally imputed

to her as a merit was, in truth, extorted from her weakness and timidity

by the courageous opposition of the nation; she had never departed from

the strict letter of the royal commands by her own spontaneous

resolution; never did the gentle feelings of innate humanity lead her

to misinterpret the cruel purport of her instructions. Even the few

concessions to which necessity compelled her were granted with an

uncertain and shrinking hand, as if fearing to give too much; and she

lost the fruit of her benefactions because she mutilated them by a

sordid closeness. What in all the other relations of her life she was

too little, she was on the throne too much--a woman! She had it in her

power, after Granvella’s expulsion, to become the benefactress of the

Belgian nation, but she did not. Her supreme good was the approbation

of her king, her greatest misfortune his displeasure; with all the

eminent qualities of her mind she remained an ordinary character because

her heart was destitute of native nobility. She used a melancholy power

with much moderation, and stained her government with no deed of

arbitrary cruelty; nay, if it had depended on her, she would have always

acted humanely. Years afterwards, when her idol, Philip II., had long

forgotten her, the Netherlanders still honored her memory; but she was

far from deserving the glory which her successor’s inhumanity reflected

upon her.

She left Brussels about the end of December, 1567. The duke escorted

her as far as the frontiers of Brabant, and there left her under the

protection of Count Mansfeld in order to hasten back to the metropolis

and show himself to the Netherlanders as sole regent.

TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF COUNTS EGMONT AND HORN.

The two counts were a few weeks after their arrest conveyed to Ghent

under an escort of three thousand Spaniards, where they were confined in

the citadel for more than eight months. Their trial commenced in due

form before the council of twelve, and the solicitor-general, John Du

Bois, conducted the proceedings. The indictment against Egmont

consisted of ninety counts, and that against Horn of sixty. It would

occupy too much space to introduce them here. Every action, however

innocent, every omission of duty, was interpreted on the principle which

had been laid down in the opening of the indictment, “that the two

counts, in conjunction with the Prince of Orange, had planned the

overthrow of the royal authority in the Netherlands, and the usurpation

of the government of the country;” the expulsion of Granvella; the

embassy of Egmont to Madrid; the confederacy of the Gueux; the

concessions which they made to the Protestants in the provinces under

their government--all were made to have a connection with, and reference

to, this deliberate design. Thus importance was attached to the most

insignificant occurrences, and one action made to darken and discolor

another. By taking care to treat each of the charges as in itself a

treasonable offence it was the more easy to justify a sentence of high

treason by the whole.

The accusations were sent to each of the prisoners, who were required to

reply to them within five days. After doing so they were allowed to

employ solicitors and advocates, who were permitted free access to them;

but as they were accused of treason their friends were prohibited from

visiting them. Count Egmont employed for his solicitor Von Landas, and

made choice of a few eminent advocates from Brussels.

The first step was to demur against the tribunal which was to try them,

since by the privilege of their order they, as Knights of the Golden

Fleece, were amenable only to the king himself, the grand master. But

this demurrer was overruled, and they were required to produce their

witnesses, in default of which they were to be proceeded against _in

contumaciam._ Egmont had satisfactorily answered to eighty-two counts,

while Count Horn had refuted the charges against him, article by

article. The accusation and the defence are still extant; on that

defence every impartial tribunal would have acquitted them both. The

Procurator Fiscal pressed for the production of their evidence, and the

Duke of Alva issued his repeated commands to use despatch. They

delayed, however, from week to week, while they renewed their protests

against the illegality of the court. At last the duke assigned them

nine days to produce their proofs; on the lapse of that period they were

to be declared guilty, and as having forfeited all right of defence.

During the progress of the trial the relations and friends of the two

counts were not idle. Egmont’s wife, by birth a duchess of Bavaria,

addressed petitions to the princes of the German empire, to the Emperor,

and to the King of Spain. The Countess Horn, mother of the imprisoned

count, who was connected by the ties of friendship or of blood with the

principal royal families of Germany, did the same. All alike protested

loudly against this illegal proceeding, and appealed to the liberty of

the German empire, on which Horn, as a count of the empire, had special

claims; the liberty of the Netherlands and the privileges of the Order

of the Golden Fleece were likewise insisted upon. The Countess Egmont

succeeded in obtaining the intercession of almost every German court in

behalf of her husband. The King of Spain and his viceroy were besieged

by applications in behalf of the accused, which were referred from one

to the other, and made light of by both. Countess Horn collected

certificates from all the Knights of the Golden Fleece in Spain,

Germany, and Italy to prove the privileges of the order. Alva rejected

them with a declaration that they had no force in such a case as the

present. “The crimes of which the counts are accused relate to the

affairs of the Belgian provinces, and he, the duke, was appointed by the

king sole judge of all matters connected with those countries.”

Four months had been allowed to the solicitor-general to draw up the

indictment, and five were granted to the two counts to prepare for their

defence. But instead of losing their time and trouble in adducing their

evidence, which, perhaps, would have profited then but little, they

preferred wasting it in protests against the judges, which availed them

still less. By the former course they would probably have delayed the

final sentence, and in the time thus gained the powerful intercession of

their friends might perhaps have not been ineffectual. By obstinately

persisting in denying the competency of the tribunal which was to try

them, they furnished the duke with an excuse for cutting short the

proceedings. After the last assigned period had expired, on the 1st of

June, 1658, the council of twelve declared them guilty, and on the 4th

of that month sentence of death was pronounced against them.

The execution of twenty-five noble Netherlanders, who were beheaded in

three successive days in the marketplace at Brussels, was the terrible

prelude to the fate of the two counts. John Casembrot von Beckerzeel,

secretary to Count Egmont, was one of the unfortunates, who was thus

rewarded for his fidelity to his master, which he steadfastly maintained

even upon the rack, and for his zeal in the service of the king, which

he had manifested against the Iconoclasts. The others had either been

taken prisoners, with arms in their hands, in the insurrection of the

“Gueux,” or apprehended and condemned as traitors on account of having

taken a part in the petition of the nobles.